One of the great achievements this year was to have a pleasant and delicious Christmas dinner at home with Daniel. Last year I was in so much pain when eating and the year before I was also in pain. This was the first Christmas since 2010 that I was able to enjoy the food.

Since the rhizotomy 369 days ago, I have been able to do so many things that I couldn’t do the previous year. The neurosurgeon’s fellow told me that the pain would come back, and that the best case scenario would be to be pain-free for 3-5 years. There is nothing like a window of time like that to get you focused on some things that need to be done.

I think the one thing I am most pleased about is keeping a promise I made to my mom in 2010 when she was dying. I told her I would take care of Betty — her sister and my biological mother. I was able to accomplish that. I took care of her finances and things she needed at the facility where she lived. And when she died in April, I contacted my sisters and planned her funeral and burial. I asked Daniel to build her a casket as I wanted to have a green burial.

Betty had a Catholic service at St. Augustine’s and was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in the same plot as her father, Charles Edward Evans, who died in 1972. My brothers were the pallbearers and I was so pleased that Betty’s cousin Len Metcalfe came, along with his wife and his daughter. It meant a lot to me to have family there. We buried the ashes of Barbara, the middle sister, at the same time.

I have also been able to put together some details of the family history on the Evans side of the family that I didn’t have before, thanks to Len Metcalfe . We have been sharing photos and he has told me some stories about my grandfather and great-grandfather.

It was also important to me that the family not be forgotten, so I organized grave markers for Betty, her sister Barbara and Grandpa Evans. My sister Miriam has a flair for writing epitaphs. We worked on the concepts together and she refined them.

Other things that I accomplished that I would not have been able to do in 2012:

• speaking engagement at an educational event for MS, posted to YouTube

• fundraised $6775 for the MS Society and led my team who raised over $16,000

• donated significant historical family archives to the City of Vancouver Archives

• media exposure in a whole new area — MS and CCSVI

• my first-ever published op-ed piece in a major newspaper to raise awareness of trigeminal neuralgia and MS

• speaker on a patient panel workshop for UBC Health Care Communication’s 2013 Allies in Health on barriers to health care communication

• participated in the women’s WOW group at GF Strong Rehab Centre

• travelled to a facial pain conference in Richmond, Virginia

• visited Washington, DC and Long Island, NY to visit my sister

• went to New York City, saw a show on Broadway and had dinner in Greenwich Village

• traveled to Quebec for Daniel’s family reunion

• blogged my whole history of miscommunication and misdiagnoses in the health care system

• wrote letters to most of the doctors I have seen who misdiagnosed me or treated me poorly

• learned more about CCSVI and interviewed an amazing success story, Lori Batchelor

I can’t say it has been a great year although it looks pretty good when I itemize the things I did. But it certainly has been an interesting one. It is difficult to feel full joy and pleasure with my altered sensations and emotions. I have lost most friends, made a few new ones and Daniel and I are still together. That’s the greatest blessing after so much trauma.

My focus in the new year will need to be redefining my ‘purpose’. Why am I here? How can I learn to live with full joy in a different body?